Meaning, adult children who no longer live at home.
ISTM that the normal and appropriate thing is to knock. For one thing, if you don’t live there then the parents’ mindset might be to have more private things out in the open than, and would want to be forewarned. But beyond that, the notion of entering without knocking implies a level of familiarity and entitlement which is associated with current inhabitants.
Most people I know do things this way. But I also know situations where adult children enter without knocking. Old habits die hard.
When my parents were alive, I either knocked and waited to be let in, or called and told them what time I would be there. Same holds true now for my mother-in-law, who lives a couple of blocks from us.
Knock? We don’t even use the front door in my family, lol. My brother and I (28 and 31, respectively) both have garage door openers in our cars for our parents’ house. We open the garage and let ourselves in. But generally our parents are also expecting us for some sort of gathering. If that isn’t the case, I might be bringing by laundry or something on the weekend. Sometimes they’re home and sometimes not.
My brother and I spent most of our childhood in that house (me closer to half, probably). There is a huge level of familiarity, even if we no longer live there. And this extends to other family. No one knocks at my grandparents’ house, either. You let yourself in because they leave the key out for you. If I were visiting my cousins, who I get to see less often, I would knock. But I also wouldn’t have a key, so it’s a mute point, lol.
I agree with Crotalus and have the good fortune of sensible relatives, not just my own children. Even the friends (not relatives) I still have contact with (phone or email primarily) would see it as common courtesy to provide a phone call (at the least) before suddenly appearing at the door.
For one thing, maybe the most important!, these days if you suddenly appear at someone’s door with no prior notice involved, you might be approaching a loaded weapon!
I always knocked when I went to my father’s apartment, even though I had the keys.
It was his place, after all. And it wasn’t the place I grew up in, so I never had the feeling that it was my home.
Eventually that changed, as he started (a) slipping into dementia and (b) losing the ability to walk (diabetic neuropathy). I had to go over there every morning and help him out of bed and into a wheelchair. I knew he had to move to an assisted living facility, but there was a period of time while I was looking for a good place for him and he was still in his home.
Even then, I felt weird about entering without knocking.
I never ever visit my parents without contacting them first, even though they are a 5 minute walk from my house. I don’t need to be barging in on something private!
But since I contact them first, they leave the front door open for me, and I don’t knock. I open it and let my dogs in first and they announce my arrival just fine.
Maybe once or twice in the past 15 years I’ve popped over unannounced, and I did knock. And no one was home.
I live about a 3-hour drive from my parents (who are still in the house where I grew up), so I never just drop in. Even though they always know when I’m coming (and I call them to give them an ETA from the road), I’ll always knock or ring the bell when i get there. Even though they say, “you don’t have to!”, it’s polite, and it’s not my house anymore!
My mom’s door is always locked. My dad always told us to lock the doors when you’re home. So that has been drilled into all of us. I still lock my door when I’m home. It’s just an automatic thing.
IF my mom’s door was unlocked, I would knock and then open the door. Also, my mom would know that I was coming to see her. I am not a barger/drop-in. That is one of my pet peeves. My MIL is one and I HATE it. It’s so rude.
At my mom’s, we walk in and call out, since she may be in another part of the house and we don’t want to startle her. Same when we visit my husband’s folks, tho we generally call them when we’re close. They live 800 miles away and call us periodically as we’re driving down the interstate.
But when we visit my sibs, we always knock first. Weird, huh?
We all have keys to each other’s homes. Going to The Bros we normally ring from the street; at Mom’s we don’t. That’s partly because neither Mom’s mobility nor her hearing are the best, but mainly because she’s always preferred having us open the door ourselves than making her move from her nest of pillows or wherever she is at the time.
I suspect FCM and I are related, but then, I’ve had that suspicion for quite a while.
The only time I ever dropped in unexpectedly at my parents’ house was on the rare occasion that I was in the area during the day for work and would stop in for a quick visit. I would give a quick knock and/or call out as I walked in(no doors locked during the day, and at night only when they thought about it). Dad was always at work, so no chance of interrupting something that I did NOT want to know about:) For weekend or evening visits I would call because it was a 30-45 minute drive and didn’t want to show up and find them not at home. Then I would just open the door and walk in without knocking because they were expecting me. Of course, there was always a little advance warning because their dog(s) would hear and recognize me and give “happy dog at the door” warnings before I got out of my truck. But I never consciously thought about ‘interrupting’ anything. It worked the same way when they visited me, including the Dog Powered Advance Warning System®.
These days my SO and I never knock when visiting his parents, but then they live three hours away so it would be foolhardy to drop in unexpectedly.
My grandparents were all people you could walk in on, any time. They expected it. My father’s the same, but my mother’s extremely private. I live many hours away from them, so my rare visits are fully expected and I don’t knock. If they lived locally, we’d all knock (because my father’s been trained to). My mother and I would also both expect a call first. It’s probably the only thing she and I agree about.
My oldest son and his wife lived in my neighborhood for a couple of years, and they would always just drop in, unlocking the door themselves, which I found jarring if I happened to be enjoying precious alone time, since usually my teens and homebody partner are around. As much as I’ve always loved hanging out, I need a text first, so I can shift gears to HUMAN mode. Texting is the new knocking. And if you are a walk-in, you should stand in the doorway and announce yourself and wait to be greeted.
I never dropped in on my adult son and daughter-in-law.
My partner’s extended family is local, and even though they’re dropper-inners who never knock with each other, they know never to drop in on us without texting or calling.
My parents live an hour away, but even when I lived 20 minutes away I would let them know I was coming. Sometimes I do spontaneously decide to drop by when I’m in the area, but I still call ahead to make sure it’s OK. And when I arrive, I knock, but I do let myself in if there’s no answer because they’re probably having a drink in the backyard waiting for me.
I also ask before coming over when I know they’re on vacation. They live in the suburbs near some old friends of mine and also near some beaches where I like to dive. Sometimes I’ll make a day of the 40-mile trip by diving first, then going to their place to shower and wash my gear, then meeting up with a friend nearby. They always say yes but I always ask. They might be OK with me not asking, but it’s what I’d want them to do for me.
After I moved out, my parents changed the locks, so I had to knock.
Seriously, they did change the locks, but only because their 40 year old doorknob finally fell apart. They offered me a key, but since I didn’t live nearby and didn’t have any problem with knocking, I declined. But yeah, I would have knocked anyway instead of letting myself in.
Hit submit too soon. Seriously, they did change the locks, but only because their 40 year old doorknob finally fell apart. They offered me a key, but since I didn’t live nearby and didn’t have any problem with knocking, I declined. But yeah, I would have knocked anyway instead of letting myself in.
Since my dad usually picks me up at the airport, this isn’t an issue that normally comes up when arrive. But if I’m going out for a walk while I’m staying with them, or if I take a bus or a cab from the airport, I let myself in with the key – they would think it very odd if I knocked or rang the doorbell, unless I had somehow locked myself out. But, of course, they also know that I’m coming, or that I’m staying there, since I live 850 miles away, and I guess it would be different if I lived at casual-drop-in distance.
I never used to but eventually I decided that I wanted HER knocking when she visited MY house so I started knocking and waiting at her door to set the new paradigm.